TechCrunch — AI · September 14, 2026 · 2 min read

OpenAI buys smartphone camera maker Glass Imaging for $300 million, report says

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In Brief

Posted:

1:44 PM PDT · September 14, 2026

Photographic aperture camera lens — **Image Credits:**YIN WENJIE / Getty Images

Amanda Silberling

OpenAI buys smartphone camera maker Glass Imaging for $300 million, report says

OpenAI has bought smartphone camera maker Glass Imaging in a deal worth over $300 million, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. The company, founded in 2019 and based in Los Altos, California, had previously raised about $30 million in funding from investors.

Glass Imaging was founded by Ziv Attar and Tom Bishop, a pair of former Apple engineers who previously led the team that developed Apple’s Portrait Mode. This background directly informs the work they now do at Glass Imaging, where they use AI to overcome the physical size constraints of smartphone cameras. Rather than using AI to edit a photo after it’s been taken, Glass Imaging uses neural networks to learn about individual camera systems — like the different cameras on various smartphone models — to yield better images from the moment the shutter clicks.

OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The ChatGPT maker is rumored to be working on its own hardware, like smartphones, earbuds, and AI companion devices.

In 2025, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and famed Apple designer Jony Ive revealed that they had been working together on a device startup called io, when OpenAI bought Ive’s company for $6.5 billion.

Topics

AI, Hardware, In Brief, Mergers and Acquisitions, OpenAI

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